Hot Glue and Pink Stains
by skwirelygurli
Summary: Austin is stuck on the idea of Ally, despite having a girlfriend. Auslly.


**Hot Glue and Pink Stains, an Austin and Ally oneshot**

**I do not own Austin and Ally. This is a response to a tumblr prompt. Please enjoy and review!**

It all started with a smile.

Trouble is, it was plastered on the wrong face. Technically painted, with the same shade of pink stained on the knee of his favorite jeans.

Last Monday, the art teacher had asked the students to bring in a picture of someone that meant a lot to them. They would use it as the model for their realistic portraits. Austin had forgotten his picture.

"Ally, can you stand in front of this blank wall for a minute?"

It's the following Tuesday now, and he's putting the finishing touches on the locket of her necklace. He thinks about how her boyfriend gave it to her, and how he has a girlfriend of his own, one that will not be happy when she finds out that she was not the special person that he chose for his project.

Why did he not have a picture of her on his phone?

He explains this to her when he carts his graded canvas home (a B, not too shabby, seeing as how he can't even draw a hand turkey) and she sees it propped against his desk.

That is not a happy face. She has plenty of pictures of him on her phone, from concerts and parties, and he's seriously wondering how she has time to enjoy life from behind the lens all the time.

"So nothing is going on between you and Ally then?" It's not the first time she's asked him this. Lord knows it won't be the last either.

"I promise." He links her pinky, though he would have rather sealed the deal with the kiss. It's obvious she's still unsure, still hurt.

He should start taking more pictures of his girlfriend. Once she smiles again, that is. He doesn't need a constant reminder about how he let her down.

Her phone buzzes and she pulls it out. Austin notices that he's her background.

His background is Ally.

In his defense, it was a shot of the two of them at the amusement park, a picture of them on the roller coaster. She had clung to his arm, screamed in his ear. He enjoyed it.

The clinging. He could go without the screaming.

He had nearly dropped his phone off the roller coaster getting both their faces in the frame. They'd smushed together to fit. With the width of his screen, they look even closer.

She excuses herself. Something has come up at home. He takes the freedom to scroll through his photos, opt for a new background photo. This one is of the four of them.

The guilt subsides.

It resurfaces over the weekend, and he asks his mother if his girlfriend can join them for dinner.

"When did you start dating Ally?" His father struggles to open a bag of frozen vegetables.

"I'm not," he replies, and it occurs to him how little he's spoken about his love life. They're always at work when she's over.

How have the past two months gone by without him mentioning his supposed love?

"I think he's talking about that girl, Stacey."

"It's Macy, mom."

"Well, Macy is welcome to come to dinner." Mr. Moon gets the bag open, and a few peas jump to the ground. One hits his foot.

It's nothing compared to the flood of peas that rain down her lap when she drops the bowl at dinner.

Her cheeks turn red, much like her burning thighs.

They all jump to help her and she politely refuses, running off to the bathroom. The rest of the night does not see improvement.

He goes to bed emotionally exhausted.

That doesn't stop his mom from coming into the room. She sits on the edge of the bed, and somehow the conversation comes to Ally. How he was in love with her, and talks about her all the time, and that painting that he's hung in his closet, hiding behind his sweatshirts. Out of his girlfriend's line of vision.

"What were you doing in my closet?" he asks, hoping to change the subject.

"Getting your laundry." She waits for him to answer her original question.

He explains how it's complicated, how he doesn't want to lose his best friend and partner. How he loves her. How he doesn't want to let go when they hug, and how last time he almost didn't until her boyfriend came into the room.

He explains how she has a boyfriend.

"I just don't want to see Macy get hurt because you're stringing her along." There's a distant expression on her face for a beat, and then it's gone.

"I'm not stringing her along. I really like Macy." The expression returns, lingers this time.

"Alright sweetie." She kisses his cheek and rises from the bed. "As long as you're sure."

That may be one of the most daunting words in the english language. It's concrete. There's no wiggle room.

And right now, he's wiggling like Jello.

He doesn't reply. All he does is cradle Dougie the dolphin under his arm, pull the covers over his head and try to lock the thoughts out with the linens.

It doesn't work.

He dreams about her, giggling over the piano keys, a talent Macy has never possessed. Their hands touch, and his heart skips, though he can't tell if it's in the dream or in his chest. It feels like both.

He will never kiss Macy over the piano keys. He will never get to feel the butterflies when their hands accidentally touch.

"Want to learn how to play the keyboard?" he asks when she enters his room to find him on the floor, working on a melody. Dougie is sitting behind his shoulder.

Crap, he forgot to hide Dougie. If he grabs him now, there's no way he can make it to the closet without making a scene. Or without her seeing that painting, will all of his hoodies in the wash.

"What's that?"

Double crap.

He pretends he doesn't know what she's pointing at. "What's what?"

She picks him up. "This."

Part of him wants to lie. But he knows that the best relationships are rooted in honesty.

"Dougie the dolphin."

"When did you get him?"

"A long time ago. Ally gave him to me." The words fly out of his mouth. She hadn't asked who.

Honesty sucks.

First the painting, then that lingering hug she caught them in, now his dolphin.

Please, don't let her find the spare shirt left in his closet.

They'd been baking in the kitchen, and she had gotten batter down the front of her shirt. He'd given her a shirt of his on loan, promised to wash hers for her. He never gave it back.

Come to think of it, she never gave him his shirt back either.

The thought makes him happier than it should.

Getting over Ally is impossible. He's stuck on her like glue. Hot glue, because it's likely to burn, and he's going to get hurt. (There is the slight possibility that if he plays his cards right, he won't get hurt, and he'll end up permanently stuck with her, a thought that has crossed every dream this week, save for the one with the mutant pigs attacking the citizens of the corn field. He shouldn't have had that third cob at dinner that night.)

"What's it doing on your bed?"

It. Not he, because Dougie is just a stuffed toy.

Then why is he so angry?

He shrugs. She presses him to use his words. Specifically "I don't know," immediately following her asking him that unavoidable question.

"Are you still in love with Ally?"

The truth is slipping through his teeth like sand. Easy in movement, but tastes awful to the tongue.

Her eyes make contact with his sheet music. She takes it to avoid his eyes. She needs time to process what he's said.

By the time she's finished reading the lyrics, her mind is made up.

"Let me know when you figure it out." A cheek kiss, the page fluttering to his lap.

It hits the floor before her tear does. Only one, because she had a feeling that this day would come.

She runs into his mother on her way down the stairs.

Looks like he's in for another mother-son talk.

She smooths down his already made bed. (He's gotten into the habit so he doesn't look like a slob in front of his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend? He's incredibly confused right now.) She confesses her own past, where she had been strung along.

Great, that makes him feel real better.

"But had he never dumped me, I would have never met your father, and we would have never had you."

"Ally has a boyfriend," he reminds her. His father had been single, things had worked out. What if this guy was her soulmate?

He picks at the pink stain on his knee. He's washed them twice since that art project, and the stain of her lips is stuck on there, permanently. Kind of like how he's stuck on her.

It would take one simple tear to rip the sheet music in half. The second verse says far too much. It's saying everything he's afraid to say.

Where is his eraser?

He can erase the words, but the feeling will still remain.

Nope, he wrote them in pen.

"Nothing lasts forever, sweetie."

Not even heartbreak.


End file.
